There are many things to consider when selecting a health insurance plan. Below are some of the common mistakes people make when choosing insurance and how to avoid them.
Failing to shop around for rates
It’s worth collecting several quotes before choosing a health insurance plan. Insurers all charge slightly different rates and you could save a lot of money each year by finding the best deal. There are sites dedicated to comparing rates that can give you a quick overview if you don’t want to fill out lots of lengthy applications. For example, this VHIS comparison offers average rates of a few different insurers. While exploring policies from larger insurers, don’t forget to also check out small niche insurance companies.
Settling for insufficient coverage
It’s important that your insurance plan actually covers you for the health problems you’re likely to encounter. Some health insurance plans will contain exclusions – which could include pre-existing health conditions, dental work, eye treatment, pregnancy/childbirth care, obesity-related treatment, alcohol/drugs-related treatment and even dialysis. Insurance policies with lots of exclusions are often cheaper. It’s important to not fall trap to these just because the rates are attractively low – research exactly what is included in your coverage so that you’re not ripped off.
Lying about medical history or lifestyle
Some people lie about their medical history or lifestyle in order to access cheaper rates. This could include not mentioning pre-existing conditions or claiming you’re not a smoker when you are. It’s important to remember that if your insurance company finds out you’ve been lying, your policy could become void. Quite often, insurers will get access to medical notes when you make a claim, and these notes could reveal that you’ve been lying – resulting in your claim being rejected.
Choosing too big a deductible
The deductible is the amount of money you are willing to pay out of your own pocket before your insurer covers you. Selecting a high deductible can help you access cheap insurance rates. However, you could end up paying a lot of your own money towards treatment, which could make your insurance feel pointless.
Not looking into multi-person/multi-policy packages
You can often get discounted rates when insuring multiple people together. Family plans are popular for this reason. However, you could also find that there are couples plans out there that are cheaper than both of you taking out separate policies. Health insurance can also be included as part of an insurance bundle – which could also include policies such as life insurance and home insurance. Each of these policies is cheaper when you take them out as a bundle. Just make sure you actually need all the policies in that bundle, otherwise you’re paying extra insurance that you never wanted.
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